


Save the Cat

by coraxes



Series: dishonored shorts [3]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Low Chaos (Dishonored), Missing Scene, listen we're all just single parents trying to get by in dunwall, rated for language/dunwall being dunwall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 15:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20914385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coraxes/pseuds/coraxes
Summary: City Watch Officer Doyle's shift near the Golden Cat was boring until it wasn't.





	Save the Cat

Doyle would have quit the Watch months ago if she could have. But there was a mouthy toddler at home who needed food on the table and elixir before bedtime, so here she was, stuck trying to protect the Golden Cat’s most disgusting VIPs.

The air felt heavy, hot, _sultry _even. Though that might have just been because Doyle could hear one of the whores propositioning Branson a block over. Doyle rolled her eyes. It had been a while since someone had patrolled down the street off to her right, hadn't it? She couldn’t remember if it had been on the assignment list or not—you couldn’t see the Cat from the narrow alleyway, and all the buildings looked boarded up—but the sergeant was off enjoying the Cat’s dubious pleasures, so whatever.

Doyle tucked herself into the narrow band of shade and began walking away from the Cat’s entrance, letting the voices behind her fade until everything seemed quiet and still. Then she caught the flicker of a shadow passing over the cement. Doyle jerked to attention, just in time to see someone disappear through the upstairs window of the building in front of her.

She hurried to the building and pushed open the door. It creaked forward on rusty hinges. “Who’s there?” Doyle called, squinting into the dim light. There was a staircase nearby and the banister wobbled as she began to climb up to the second floor. “If I have to find you myself, it’s not going to be pr—”

The chattering should have stopped her, but it didn’t. The noise was too alien for her to think, _danger. _So the rat swarm rounding the landing took Doyle completely by surprise. Teeth tugged at her cuffs, scraped against her boots, pinpricking claws dug into her uniform trousers and tiny warm diseased bodies scuttled over her feet. Doyle latched on to the banister and grabbed for her pistol—where was she supposed to shoot, they were on _her, _she couldn’t shoot _herself—_

Something else slammed into her. The world whistled by so fast Doyle’s eyes watered. By the time she could focus again she was on her ass at the base of the stairs, and the rats were shrieking as a tall hooded figure efficiently stabbed through them. It only took a second before the few survivors scattered, back up the stairs.

“Wh—” Doyle began. Her breath came out in pants and her heart felt like it would burst out of her chest. She pressed her hand hard against her sternum and stared down at her now-ragged cuffs. “Oh, _fuck._”

“Get bitten?” asked the man. His voice was hoarse as if he didn’t use it much; he bent over, back to her, to wipe his blade off on the worn carpet.

She scrambled to peel up her trouser legs. There were a few narrow scratches where the rats’ claws had dug in, but they weren’t even bleeding, just red. “I don't think so. Outsider’s blood, that was close,” she said, and looked back up at her rescuer.

Her rescuer, who happened to be wearing a metal mask shaped like a skull.

Doyle jolted to her feet. “You’re—you’re that felon.” She swallowed, mouth dry. “You can’t be here.”

The felon’s head tilted, and dark hair fell loose from his hood. His left hand flexed around something, and Doyle stiffened, but he didn’t pull out any kind of weapon. “Going to stop me?”

_Could _she? She’d rolled her eyes at rumors of the masked felon’s witchcraft before, but now, looking at that mask, the complete lack of concern in his tone…

He reached for something in his belt. Doyle jerked her pistol up, but when the felon held out his hand again he only held one of Sokolov’s elixirs. “Take it. Just in case. Go home to your daughter, Officer.” He hesitated. “Let me find mine.”

Doyle had no idea how to respond to that. She rocked back on her heels, staring at the elixir, and snatched the vial from his hand. _Treason, _a voice in her head reminded her, _you’re committing _treason, _forget getting fired, you could be _executed _for this._

Everyone looked the other way in this city. No one had to know.

“Thanks,” she said with a nod to the gory remnants of the rat swarm. “I would’ve been—thanks.”

The felon nodded. And then he vanished into the air, leaving only swirling motes of dust behind.

Outsider’s blood, Doyle thought again. She hated this job.

**Author's Note:**

> i have been meaning to write this for literal years but couldn't make it work until now. title refers to a writing technique--to "save the cat" means to give your hero a moment at the beginning of a film where they do something nice so that the audience knows to root for them.
> 
> as always, comments & kudos are much appreciated.


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